AOMEI Backupper Professional – Background
I recently got a new laptop and wanted to back it up. I’ve been an Acronis customer for, like, forever and thought I would add the new laptop to my existing subscription.
Not easy.
I have a subscription for 1 PC and wanted to up my existing subscription to their 3 PC offering. But Acronis told me:
Acronis Support chat (16/04/2020, 17:45:55): To upgrade to a 3-computer subscription, you need to purchase an Acronis True Image (Advanced or Premium) for 3 computers. Three 1-computer subscriptions cannot be automatically summed up into a 3-computer subscription.
So, to add one new PC I have to buy another full price subscription or cancel my existing one (which has several months to run) and buy a new 3 PC subscription. I would not get a refund for the unused time in my existing subscription.
Well, Acronis wins whatever I do, unless I do one thing. Find an alternative.
AOMEI Backupper Professional
A quick Google search led me to this product: AOMEI Backupper Professional. It had good reviews online, so I gave it a go.
It attracted me because:
- The price – $49.95 for a lifetime licence, all updates included.
- Its capabilities: it can do everything that I use with Acronis.
They have a special offer at the moment – two licences for the price of one. So, for $49.95 I could backup both my PCs forever, with free updates for life. And this is not a policy that can later be altered. As my invoice shows, it’s contractural.
AOMEI Backupper Professional – Free Updates for Life
Given that a 3 computer licence for Acronis costs over £60 with no free upgrades or over £55 (a year, forever) for an annual subscription for 3 licences, I was already better off and the saving will increase every year…
AOMEI Backupper Professional – Features
What do you get for your money? Here’s the blurb from AOMEI:
- Backup: supports incremental/differential backup, file/folder backup, system/disk backup, event-trigger backup;
- Restore: supports selective file restoring, dissimilar hardware restore（Universal Restore;
- Clone: supports OS migration from HDD/SSD to HDD/SSD without reinstalling;
- Sync: supports file/folder sync, real-time sync;
- Utilities: pxe boot tool, create bootable USB or CD/DVD, command line backup and restore, etc.
- Multi-Language: support English, Français, Deutsch, 日本語, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.
In addition, AOMEI Backupper provides these tools:
- Create bootable rescue media (DVD/CD, USB stick, ISO file)
- Explore Backup (by mounting it as a virtual drive in Windows)
- Check (validate) a backup image.
AOMEI Backupper Professional – In Use
Creating a backup is easy as you can see from these images:
Easy backups – Step 1
Easy backups – Step 2
Easy backups – Step 3
In the above example I backed up my Windows System Disk (SSD, 256 megs) to an external USB disk. It took just 15 minutes to do so.
I also used Backupper to back up the extra SSD in the laptop (512 megs) to the same external disk. This took longer as the disk had many photos on it. It did not take an excessive time, and I continued using the laptop throughout the backup process, with no perceptible performance loss.
Other Options
AOMEI Backupper Professional has all the expected features: Scheduled backups, incremental backups, encrypted backups and more.
It also supports disk cloning, which is essential when you upgrade your system disk.
Interestingly, AOMEI Backupper Professional can also backup folders in real time and, although this is not as fast or fully features as Bvckup2, it’s still a nice to have feature.
AOMEI Backupper Professional – Conclusion
Backing up your computer is not an option. No backup = loss of files and photos. Realtime backups, such as provided by Bvckup2, are useful but there is no substitute for a disk image that you can quickly restore in the event of computer failure or the operating system becoming corrupt.
AOMEI have provided a reasonably priced backup tool that does everything you would want from it. Its current offering of 2 for 1 with free lifetime upgrades frees your from being tied to a subscription model whilst future proofing your investment.
I was skeptical that a tool this inexpensive could replace the increasingly costly Acronis True Image. Backupper Professional does not have all of the extra tools that Acronis offers, but I wont miss them as I never used them.
If you don’t have a backup tool then I recommend AOMEI Backupper Professional. If you do, but are finding it costly to keep it up to date, AOMEI Backupper Professional is a very good and inexpensive alternative.